All applicants for the Kenyan passport will receive them within 21 days from the date of application effective May 1, 2024.
Interior CS Kithure Kindiki in a statement on Thursday said the challenges which had been affecting production of passports had been addressed.
The CS said the 21 days period will be reduced to seven days effective August 1, 2024 and to three days effective November 1, 2024.
"The government has addressed the historical bottlenecks that had resulted in frustration of many Kenyans in their search to acquire the Kenyan passport," Kindiki said.
According to Kindiki, addressing the challenges which had rocked passport processing has led to a reduction in backlog.
Some of the bottlenecks include underfunding of the Directorate of Immigration, corruption and disruption of passport booklet raw material supply chain globally.
Others include dilapidated printing infrastructure for the personalistion of passport booklets and delivery inefficiencies of ready passports.
Kindiki said these factors have crippled service delivery inconveniencing applicants for the Kenyan passports.
He said the backlog of pending passports that stood at 724,000 by March 11, 2024 has now been brought to below 50,000.
Kindiki said out of the number, 40,000 are ready for collection.
"17 public servants and members of public who were part of an organised criminal and which took advantage of the situation to extort Kenyans have been arrested nd are facing criminal charges," Kindiki said.
Kindiki said adequate infrastructural, systemic and personal arrangements have been put in place to ensure the realisation of service delivery and meet deadlines even as the number of applicants keeps growing.
The CS acknowledged that the number of Kenyans seeking to acquire passports continue to surge driven by the government's labour export policy.
